Palestinian Education

Barriers to access

Palestinian education under occupation and in exile

Education has been a source of both hope and transformation for the Palestinian people. After 1948, when a majority of Palestinians fled or were forced to leave their homeland – known as the Nakba (the catastrophe) – students and teachers played a critical role in rebuilding Palestinian society.

Palestinian schools, universities and informal institutions in exile and under occupation have contributed to sustaining Palestinian national life for a geographically fragmented people while also providing the skills for personal development and growth.

However, Palestinian educational life over the past seven decades has had to contend with the oppressive and often violent conditions of occupation and of exile. While most neighbouring Arab states provide Palestinian refugees with access to education, in some countries such as Lebanon, Palestinians are dependent on the limited services provided by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA )and experience restrictions as a result of their political status or financial situation.

As a report by the University and Colleges Union on higher education in Palestine describes, liberties within societies are interdependent and as a consequence, ‘the availability of economic, political, social and cultural freedoms have a bearing on pedagogical and academic freedoms’.

This has been the experience of Palestinian education, which confronts both its own unique obstacles and the wider challenges facing the Palestinian people as they seek to exercise their rights.

Access to Education

The right to education is enshrined in international law, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions, which govern the conduct of war and military occupations. However, access to education is denied to Palestinians today in a number of ways.

Infrastructure

Palestinian schools, universities and education ministry buildings are frequently the targets of military assault and demolition. For example, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) reported that during Israel’s 50-day military assault on the Gaza Strip in 2014 known as ‘Operation Protective Edge’, 412 students were killed and 14 higher education institutions were damaged, some of which were ‘directly targeted during the hostilities’.

Due to the harsh planning restrictions imposed on Palestinians living in ‘Area C’, which makes up 61% of the occupied West Bank, there is a severe shortage of schools and other educational infrastructure and many that are built face the threat of demolition.

In September 2017, a joint statement issued by Save the Children, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Humanitarian Coordinator for the occupied Palestinian Territories (oPt) warned of the urgent risk posed to the right of education for Palestinian children by the policy of school demolition, equipment confiscation and other practices impacting educational facilities by the occupying authorities.

Restrictions on Movement

Restrictions on movement affect access to education for Palestinians in a number of ways. The complex system of checkpoints, barriers, the Separation Wall, and the permit regime impose obstacles to the freedom of movement of individual Palestinians living under occupation. The impact is also experienced at the national level as Palestinian educational life suffers from the radical geographic fragmentation imposed by Israel.

On daily journeys to school and university, Palestinian students and teachers are forced to cross checkpoints, and are subjected to delays, detention and harassment by Israeli soldiers and settlers. The imposed separation of East Jerusalem from other occupied Palestinian territories prevents Palestinians outside the city from accessing Palestinian centers of learning and culture.

Since 2000, Israel has introduced bans on travel by students and academics which were further extended by the blockade that began in 2007. Today, Palestinians in Gaza are banned from pursuing their education in the West Bank, and are unable to attend the universities established for their benefit. Before 2000, 350 students from Gaza were studying at Birzeit University, today there are none.

Harassment and imprisonment

Students and children are frequently subject to arrest and imprisonment by the Israeli military. The Palestinian prisoner rights organisation Addameer reported on 17 December 2017 that 350 prisoners in Israeli jails were aged under 18. On average, 700 Palestinian children are prosecuted in the military court system every year, and since the year 2000 more than 12,000 have been detained.

Many prisoners are detained under the procedure of administrative detention based on British Mandate laws, which allows the imprisonment of Palestinians without public evidence, charge or trial.

While in prison, access to education is disrupted and heavily restricted, and in the case of children aged between 16 and 18, none is provided.

Approximately 80 students from Birzeit University are currently in jail (January 2018).

International isolation

As the occupying power, Israel retains full control over access to the occupied Palestinian territories and places restrictions on exit and entry. Israel refuses to grant work permits or student visas to foreign passport holders to teach or study at Palestinian universities. Students and academics carrying foreign passports are therefore reliant upon short term visitor permits, which are often delayed, issued without predictability and may be unexpectedly cancelled. Visiting academics and students are often faced with denial of entry.

In 2006 the presidents of 11 Palestinian universities published a letter addressed to members of global civil society, calling for collective action against this ‘alarming yet unannounced Israeli policy that affects our society in the West Bank and Gaza Strip at large, and education in particular’.

For Palestinian educational life in Gaza, the situation is worse since the blockade has effectively ended the entry of individual foreign passport holders while also heavily restricting the travel of Palestinian academics and students, forcing them to apply for exit permits in order to teach or study abroad. These restrictions isolate Palestinian higher education, denying universities access to international academic exchange.

In October 2016, a member of academic staff at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, Dr Adam Hanieh, was denied entry to occupied Palestine on his way to deliver classes at Birzeit University. SOAS issued a statement condemning the decision, declaring it an ‘arbitrary breach of academic freedom’.

Academic freedom and civil liberties on campus

The freedom of Palestinian universities is undermined by the potential threat of closure by Israeli authorities and expulsion of academics and students.

Between 1987 and 1992, each of the eleven Palestinian universities were forced to close for extended periods. In the case of Birzeit, the university was closed for four years with the first President of the university, Dr Hanna Nasir, exiled from 1974 until 1993.

Military raids of university campuses in the oPt remain a regular occurrence. In a recent incursion into Birzeit University, IDF forces entered the offices of the student council and confiscated campaigning materials.

A number of student unions and associations, the institutions of civic life on Palestinian campuses, have been declared illegal by Israeli military order. Membership or even having ‘ties’ with these organisations, which include among them the youth wing of Fatah, the ruling party in the Palestinian Authority, is sufficient reason for arrest under Israeli military law governing the oPt.

Palestinian citizens of Israel studying in Israeli universities also experience discriminatory practices by university authorities. Palestinian student associations are often banned by universities and activities prevented.

Funding

Due to the de-development of the Palestinian economy under occupation, Palestinian education in the oPt is heavily reliant on foreign aid. This is despite the international legal obligation of occupying powers to provide education services to the occupied population, which Israel fails to meet.

In recent years, the Palestinian Authority has faced a funding crisis as a result of cuts to foreign aid. These have led to significant reductions in public sector budgets and, in particular, salaries. In occupied East Jerusalem, where schools are under the control of the Israeli Jerusalem municipality, discriminatory funding of public services used by Palestinians has meant there is a major shortage of school places.

Today, 1000 classrooms are lacking in municipal schools and Palestinian schools receive less than half the funding of Israeli schools in Jerusalem. Palestinian citizens of Israel also face underfunding and restrictions on the development of the Palestinian education sector in Israel. Today 515,260 Palestinians refugee students residing inside and outside occupied Palestine rely upon the schools and education services provided by UNRWA.

The recent announcement of the US government’s major reduction in funding to UNRWA poses a severe threat to the education services upon which thousands of Palestinians rely.